ABOUT
PEOPLE
Gentle Giant Media Group was founded by screen industry veteran Greg Basser.
As Chairman and CEO of Gentle Giant Media Group, Greg combines over 35 years’ experience in the media and entertainment industry with powerful international business, commercial, and legal expertise in Australia, the U.S., China, the U.K., Europe and South–East Asia.
Greg is also co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Century City Entertainment Co, an affiliate of Gentle Giant, which produces compelling content for global audiences – regardless of platform & format
Prior to founding Gentle Giant, Mr Basser co–founded and ran Village Roadshow Entertainment Group (VREG), one of the world’s leading independent global feature film entertainment companies. As Chief Executive Officer of VREG, Greg was instrumental in the company’s birth, growth and commercially successful expansion into the business of financing and producing Hollywood films.
Under Greg’s leadership, Village Roadshow Pictures produced 101 Hollywood films with Global Box Office receipts in excess of US$18.5 billion. Ninety-one of those films were in partnership with Warner Bros. and 13 were Australian–produced titles including the Matrix Trilogy, Happy Feet, Happy Feet 2, Legends of the Guardians, The Great Gatsby, Mad Max Fury Road, Where The Wild Things Are and San Andreas.
101 Films
US$18.5 billion in Box Office
19 Academy Awards
6 Golden Globes
EXPERIENCE
In 2011 Greg founded Village Roadshow Pictures Asia (VRPA) and co–founded Perfect Village, a joint venture with VRPA, Perfect World and Endeavor Content. Perfect Village produces films in Chinese as co–productions with Chinese companies for release in China.
Gentle Giant Media Group has partnered with Impact to bring Impact’s innovative Impact Australia program to Melbourne, the first of which was held “virtually” in 2020 and is continuing in person in 2021. .
Founded by Ron Howard, Brian Grazer, and Tyler Mitchell in March 2018, Impact cultivates and empowers creative storytellers from around the world by taking an innovative and collaborative approach to content creation. In Impact programs, talented voices from all over the world are paired with award-winning screenwriters and showrunners, who work with them to help break story, craft characters, offer ideas, give notes and push the Creators to produce their best work at the accelerated pace of an 8 week program. Over 14,000 writers from 80+ countries have applied to Impact, of which 72 writers & writing teams have been accepted, creating 61 new film and TV projects, 22 of which have been set-up at places like Netflix, Sony, Legendary, Village Roadshow, Amblin etc.
Impact Australia has been specially designed for Australian creatives to bring their home-grown original IP to audiences globally.
Greg is member of Screen Producers Australia and of the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Sciences. He is also a former member of the Board & the Executive Committee of Australians in Film, a Los Angeles based non–profit foundation that supports and promotes Australian screen talent and culture in the United States. Greg is an inaugural CEO member of the American Australian Business Council and a G’Day USA Champion for the Australian Government’s G’Day USA program.
In 2016, Greg was awarded the Qantas Orry–Kelly International Award, honoring him for his contribution to the national identity of Australia, his success in and contribution to the international film industry and for creating opportunities and inspiration for other Australians internationally. He is also a Member of the International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences and a 2017 and 2018 Variety500 Honoree.
The establishment of Gentle Giant Media Group reflects Greg’s commitment to supporting the next generation of Australian filmmakers and the Australian film industry more generally through his professional and philanthropic activities and active promotion of cross border co–productions in Australia.
Personal Life
Greg holds a Bachelor of Arts (Actuarial Studies) from Macquarie University and a Bachelor of Law from Monash University. He lives with his wife Kiera and a mostly delightful red-headed puppy named Frankie. They have two grown daughters and a large, loud extended family.
Greg and Kiera O’Neill, his wife of 30+ years, are active philanthropists and have supported numerous education and youth focussed programs over many years. 2019 saw the establishment by Gentle Giant Media and the Onbass Fund of the Onbass Giant Steps Scholarship at Australian Film Television and Radio School to assist undergraduates students who show great merit and also require financial assistance to study at AFTRS. In 2018 they joined with Screen Australia and G’Day USA to establish the Screen Australia Onbass Fellowship, dedicated to helping Australian filmmakers attend the American Film Institute Conservatory. Greg and Kiera funded the Active Minds program for disadvantaged school children via the Melbourne Museum for 15 years. They have also been generous supporters of youth programs at both the Los Angeles LGBT Centre and the Centre Theatre Company in Los Angeles.